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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Big Education Ape: 4-11-12 AM Educators Issue VAM Report for Secretary Duncan EDition #P2

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 news spotters today

Teacher Evaluation Nightmare! « Parents Across America

parentsacrossamerica.org - « Back to Events April 17 forum in NYC: Teacher Evaluation Nightmare! iCal Import A forum on testing, teacher evaluations and our schools(Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall Station 4,5,6 -Fulton Street Stat...
leoniehaimson

3 Md. public school employees to share big lottery prize

content.usatoday.com - Three public school system employees -- two teachers and one in an administrative post -- are Maryland's big winners of the Mega Millions lottery and will split more than $105 million after taxes.B...
arneduncan

- Wait, What?

jonathanpelto.com - Apr 10 jonpeltoCharter Schools, Democratic Legislators, Education, Malloy, Stefan Pryor Dan Malloy, Education Reform, Stefan Pryor Last night, Governor Malloy made his understanding of public educa...
DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Teamster Nation: Today's Teamster News 04.11.12 bit.ly/HKA1jI8 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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EducationSee all

What Do Teachers Want? - Bridging Differences

blogs.edweek.org - Dear Deborah, We heard a lot last month about the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It showed that teachers across the nation are demoralized and that their job satisfaction has dropped preci...
DianeRavitch

Gary Stager: Mission Accomplished!

huffingtonpost.com - I would like to go way out on a limb and make a radical declaration. I am a big fan of reading, books and improving literacy. I even think these things are good for children.That's why I quickly cl...
DianeRavitch

SocietySee all

Drop your support of ALEC!

act.credoaction.com - You and more than 100,000 CREDO activists, along with 85,000 ColorOfChange members, have called on corporations to stop supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because of its ro...
mikeklonsky

Power Punk: Micah Lasher | The New York Observer

observer.com - Poof! Electoral magician pulls candidates out of hat, tries not to make them disappear Hardball politics are nothing new in New York; indeed, the major elections, such as a Mayoral race, frequently...
leoniehaimson

StoriesSee all

PoliticsSee all

Santorum bows out, clearing the path for Romney

philly.com - Now it's Romney vs. Obama. With that in mind and a bruising primary fight finally behind him, Mitt Romney bathed in the praise Tuesday night of a cheering crowd of Chester County Republicans - fina...
mikeklonsky

Republican Stupidity Widens Gender Gap

outsidethebeltway.com - Weeks of bizarre talk about contraception and vaginal ultrasounds has surprisingly alienated women from the Republican Party. USA Today (“Swing States Poll: A shift by women puts Obama in lead“): P...
mikeklonsky

Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Citizens United

newser.com - Dahlia Lithwick says court is ill-equipped to deal with comedy (NEWSER) - The Supreme Court has had plenty of powerful foils over the years, like Andrew Jackson and FDR, "but in the history of the ...
leoniehaimson

Art & EntertainmentSee all

Check Out the First Trailer for "Mrs. Eastwood & Company"

hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Check Out the First Trailer for “Mrs. Eastwood & Company” - Starring the Icon’s Wife and Family Published at 12:23 pm EST, April 10, 2012 E! has finally released the first trailer for the upcoming ...
coopmike48

EnvironmentSee all

Philippine warship in standoff with China vessels

democraticunderground.com - Source: APMANILA, Philippines (AP) -- The Philippine government says its largest warship is engaged in a standoff with Chinese surveillance vessels that blocked it when it attempted to arrest Chine...
coopmike48

Germany: Blockupy Frankfurt, May 17-19!

occupywallst.org - A broad coalition of organizations, initiatives and networks are mobilizing to diverse days of action in Frankfurt from May 16th to 18th . The central element of the protest choreography is mass bl...
coopmike48

#p2Read this paperSee all

Drop your support of ALEC!

act.credoaction.com - You and more than 100,000 CREDO activists, along with 85,000 ColorOfChange members, have called on corporations to stop supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because of its ro...
mikeklonsky

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Put a face on it. « Fred Klonsky

Put a face on it. « Fred Klonsky:


Put a face on it.

by Fred Klonsky
To those few non-teachers who might be following the discussion of pensions it must get mind-numbing trying to follow all the number crunching, revenue versus expenditure budget talk.
It isn’t made easier by the purposeful obfuscation of the Ty Fahner funded Illinois is Broke PR nonsense.
What gets lost in all this is the pensioner.
Yes. What Ty doesn’t want folks to see is the face of the retired teacher.
Folks. That could be your grandma we’re talking about.
I know. She can be annoying at family gatherings. But she’s not the selfish, free-loading, big-spending character 
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The Innovative Educator: 12 Most Convincing Reasons to Opt Your Child Out of Standardized Testing

The Innovative Educator: 12 Most Convincing Reasons to Opt Your Child Out of Standardized Testing:


12 Most Convincing Reasons to Opt Your Child Out of Standardized Testing

by noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Nielsen)
More and more parents are standing up and taking back control of their child's learning. One way they are doing this is by opting out of standardized tests which robs children of meaningful learning time and opportunities.  If you've thought about opting your child out of tests or if you're trying to convince others that this is a valid decision, this post will help you make a case with 12 compelling reasons to take action.  

12 Most Unconventional Reasons to Opt Your Child Out of Standardized Testing


If you're ready to find others who want to opt out, you can join others interested in opting out in your state in two ways:
1) Type in the search: Opt out of State Standardized Tests — Your State i.e. Opt Out of State Standardized Tests – Ohio
2) Go to the page url: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OptOutYourState i.e.https://www.facebook.com/groups/OptOutOhio
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Guess which states don’t fund pre-K programs - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Guess which states don’t fund pre-K programs - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:
Answer Sheet

10-year-old: ‘I want to know why after vacation I have to take test after test after test’

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 hours ago
This *was written by Carol Corbett Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Tennessee back to the future with new anti-evolution law

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago
It’s back to the future for Tennessee, where a new law was just put on the books that could undermine the teaching of accepted scientific thought in areas including evolution and climate change. The law encourages teachers to “present the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” But, as noted by the nonprofit National Center for Science Education, the only examples given in the bill of “controversial” theories are “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” Read... more »

The Answer Sheet - 4 hours ago

Guess which states don’t fund pre-K programs

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 7 hours ago
Early education is one of the few school reforms — if not the only one — with extensive research showing its value in academic, social and other ways. Yet a new report shows that funding across the country by states has declined over the past two years — to the tune of about $90 million — even though enrollment has increased. What’s more, a number of states don’t even fund early pre-K programs. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Pre-K funding drops nationally, report says

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 16 hours ago
Funding for state-funded pre-kindergarten programs across the country dropped by a total of almost $60 million during the 2010-11 school year despite extensive research showing the benefits of quality early education, according to a newly released report. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

How ‘early warning systems’ are keeping kids in school

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 20 hours ago
This was *written by Robert Balfanz, a senior research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, where he is also co-director of Talent Development Secondary and co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center. * Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

The inevitable dark side of ‘school choice’

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
This was *written by Ann Geiger, who served on the Orange County School Board in Orlando, Fl., from 2004-2008. A native of Virginia, she lives in Arlington and blogs at www.publicpolicyblogger.com, where this appeared.* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
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School library closures will decimate children’s education - California Teachers Association

School library closures will decimate children’s education - California Teachers Association:


School library closures will decimate children’s education

Galt Herald -
In the last few years, our Galt schools have endured severe cutbacks. In yet another year of extreme cuts, our children are faced with losing more programs. Among the programs to be cut next school year is our school library.
The school library is one of the few programs in our local schools that benefit every child, not just a select few. Every school in Galt is a “Title 1” school, which basically means we have a large number of low socioeconomic families in our district. Statistics show a high number of our students (nearly 75 percent) would never be exposed to a library without their school libraries.  Our children are at risk without library services. Many of these children come from families who do not value books or reading, they do not have the time or resources to get their child to the public library during business hours.  How do these children stay excited about reading without access to new reading material?
Read More
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A Trayvon Martin Fundraiser Cost a Teacher Her Job—And Showed the Value of Unions - Education - GOOD

A Trayvon Martin Fundraiser Cost a Teacher Her Job—And Showed the Value of Unions - Education - GOOD:


A Trayvon Martin Fundraiser Cost a Teacher Her Job—And Showed the Value of Unions

by Liz Dwyer
million.hoodie
Teachers nationwide are looking for ways to educate their students about the murder of 17-year-old Florida teenTrayvon Martin. But according to Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, doing exactly that cost Michigan middle school teacher Brooke Harris her job.
The quality of Harris' instruction isn't a factor in her firing. She's been named her school's teacher of the year two of the last three years. Her skill as an educator is evident from the fact that she followed experts' 
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SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: The New Students First Drinking Game

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: The New Students First Drinking Game:


The New Students First Drinking Game

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)
Sheila Kaplan, @EducationNY, had tweeted earlier this evening, that Micah Lasher, new Lord and Overseer of StudentsFirstNY had been interviewed on Inside City Hall tonight. I tweeted back that it was probably softball questions being tossed at him by Errol Louis and not worth watching. She had informed me that Louis was tough on him and I had just gotten done watching the video. Yes, Louis was tough on him, but Lasher just spewed forth the party line if cliches and whatnot and it got me to thinking.

Remember The Bob Newhart Show? The one in which is was a psychologist. Anyway, there used to be a drinking game associated with the show. Every time that someone on the show said "Hi, Bob," you were to 
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Reflections on Year One of Re:education in Baltimore | Re:education in Baltimore

Reflections on Year One of Re:education in Baltimore | Re:education in Baltimore:


Reflections on Year One of Re:education in Baltimore

Honoré Daumier 017 (Don Quixote)
Don Quijote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A week ago Baltimore storyteller Rafael Alvarez challenged me, over pita points and taramosalata at Samos, to explain what I was doing with this blog and who I was doing it for, in 140 characters or less. I couldn’t. But I took up the challenge to explain my quixotic quest, as he painted it, in my anniversary post.
Today marks one year of Re:education in Baltimore. It’s my paper anniversary. After filling a dozen creamy pages with ink (they used to call that writing), it’s time to transfer some thoughts to the Web.
What am I doing? 
I started this blog to prevent myself from alienating my friends and family. After a year of engagement with the charter versus neighborhood school quandary, I was bombarding everyone in earshot with talk of issues they either didn’t want to talk about or didn’t want to confront at the same high level of intensity. I’d learned a lot. The people in a ten-foot radius may not have cared, but I was sure others did. Why not write a blog?
What started as (and still is) an outlet for sharing knowledge and curating stories of interest quickly turned into a platform 
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Professor Thomas writes about charter schools

Professor Thomas writes about charter schools:


Professor Thomas writes about charter schools

By Vince Moore Filed in Education, FU in the News April 10th, 2012 @ 7:52 pm
Dr. Paul Thomas
In an op-ed for The State newspaper in Columbia, Furman education professor Paul Thomas asks this question:  “What are we to make of proposals to increase resources allocated to charter schools, and in effect, divert resources away from traditional public schools?”  His piece, “Charter Schools Aren’t the Right Answer,” ran in the April 6 issue of the newspaper.

Response: Several Ways To Engage Students Without Carrots & Sticks - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

by P. L. Thomas
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NYC Educator: To My Student "Melissa," Who Is Transferring

NYC Educator: To My Student "Melissa," Who Is Transferring:


To My Student "Melissa," Who Is Transferring

by Miss Eyre
A student who is very dear to me is transferring at the end of the academic year due to a move to a very "outer" region of an outer borough. This is for her.

***

Dear "Melissa":

I can't believe you're leaving. You were one of the first students I noticed when I came to your school almost two years ago now. At first you just seemed like another scared ninth grader. But as I got to know you over the past two years, I've learned a lot about you that sets you apart from your peers.

Even among many students who had tough starts in life, yours has been uniquely tough. It started when you were born early, disabled, and clinging to life. It got tougher when your dad went back to his native country, leaving you, your mom, and your sister to fend for yourselves in one of the 
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Jersey Jazzman: Christie's Totally Awesome School Plan

Jersey Jazzman: Christie's Totally Awesome School Plan:


Christie's Totally Awesome School Plan

by Duke
Courtesy of the Star-Ledger's Tom Moran, here's the latest look into the reformy brain of Chris Christie:
Q. And is tenure reform the most important part of that?
A. I see tenure, merit pay and OSA as a bundle. I’d like to see them all go together. By repairing the tenure system, we’ll be able to get rid of some ineffective teachers, but then we’ve got to get effective ones in there and it’s going to be years and years. So that’s why I think OSA is such an important part, and increasing charter schools in urban areas, so that those kids don’t get lost while the fixes of tenure and merit pay are fixing the system in a 10-year horizon.
So we finally get a peek at the master plan: Chris is going to fire "ineffective" teachers from the public schools. Simultaneously, he's going to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from those same schools. He's also going to 
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